J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North Wales 1799-1801 > Drawings Related to the Welsh Tour of > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Studies of the Tower of Dolbadarn Castle in a Landscape Setting 1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Studies of the Tower of Dolbadarn Castle in a Landscape Setting’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Two Studies of the Tower of Dolbadarn Castle in a Landscape Setting 1799
D40546
Pencil on white wove paper, 549 x 758 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘lxx.z’ bottom left
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘LXX Z’ towards bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
It seems that Turner made these studies, one superimposed on the other, in front of the motif, presumably as preparation for a watercolour of the kind he actually produced on the recto (Tate D04177; Turner Bequest LXX Z). They were not noted in Finberg’s Inventory.1
The character of the pencil work, with its careful delineation of features of the rock on which the tower stands, corresponds more closely to that of his sketchbook drawings than the generalised indications that underlie many of these large colour studies. See also Tate D41489 for another pencil study made on the spot on the back of one of these large watercolour studies, in that instance Tate D04176 (Turner Bequest LXX Y).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.177.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Two Studies of the Tower of Dolbadarn Castle in a Landscape Setting 1799 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-studies-of-the-tower-of-dolbadarn-castle-in-a-landscape-r1180065, accessed 23 April 2024.